Mississippi | history - geography - state, United States | Britannica.com state, United States (2010) 2,967,297; (2016 est.) 2,988,726 Total area (sq mi) "Virtute et Armis (By Valor and Arms)" State bird2 Seats in U.S. House of Representatives 4 (of 435) 1Excluding military abroad. 2The wood duck is the state waterfowl. Mississippi, constituent state of the United States of America. Its name derives from a Native American word meaning “great waters” or “father of waters.” Mississippi became the 20th state of the union in 1817. Jackson is the state capital. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. State capitol building (front) and the cityscape of Jackson, Miss., U.S. Philip Gould/Corbis Mississippi is smaller than most of the U.S. states and is bounded on the north by Tennessee , on the east by Alabama , on the south by Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico , and on the west by Louisiana and Arkansas .

Mississippi is naturally well suited to agriculture; its soil is rich and deep, and its landscape is laced with many rivers. Until the mid-20th century the dominance of a rural, unhurried lifestyle generally worked to the state’s advantage. This way of life was manifest in part in a culture of gentility, the legacy of which is still evident in the many historic mansions located in such old towns as Columbus , Biloxi , Natchez , Vicksburg , and Holly Springs . Longwood, an antebellum mansion in Natchez, Miss., U.S. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. With increasing urbanization and industrialization, however, the leisurely approach to life in many ways became a hindrance to Mississippi’s economic and social development. For decades an unusually large dependent population, a predominantly agricultural economy, and a prevailing resistance to change have kept Mississippi’s per capita income low and created an inadequate standard of living for many families. Moreover, the state has been the site of intense interracial conflict, sitting centre stage during the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.

In the early 21st century roughly half of all Mississippians still lived in rural areas—though not necessarily on farms—and the state continued to rank low in many economic indexes. Area 48,441 square miles (125,460 square km). Population (2010) 2,967,297; (2016 est.) 2,988,726. Land Elvis Presley Mississippi is a low-lying state, its highest point reaching only about 800 feet (240 metres) above sea level . Except for its hilly northeast corner, Mississippi lies entirely within the eastern gulf segment of the broader Coastal Plain physiographic region. It has generally low topographic elevations and extensive tracts of marshy land. Its major soil areas encompass hills, plains, prairies, river lowlands, and pine woods. Relief and soils In the northwestern part of the state, the great fertile crescent called the Delta is the old floodplain of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, comprising some 6,250 square miles (16,200 square km) of black alluvial soil several feet deep.

Once subject to disastrous floods, the land is now protected by levee and reservoir systems. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Opening land to farming and hunting reduced the once abundant wildlife drastically. Some animals, such as wolves and pumas (cougars), are extinct in the state; bobcats are rare and bears even rarer. Deer, however, are once again thriving, and the population of wild turkeys has increased significantly. The state has a variety of resident and migratory birds, including, among others, bald and golden eagles, many types of waterfowl and wading birds, and an array of warblers, woodpeckers, and hummingbirds. Some game fish can be caught throughout the year, with catfish , bream, bass, and perch the leading freshwater species. The gulf is rich in shrimp, oysters, and fish, together forming the mainstay of an extensive commercial fishery. People Population composition People of white European ancestry—primarily British, Irish, or northern European—account for about three-fifths of Mississippi’s residents, while African Americans make up nearly all of the remainder.

Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans each constitute just a tiny fraction of the population, with Hispanics being the largest of the three groups. The vast majority of Mississippians were born in-state, although in the late 20th century there was a wave of immigrants, mainly from Vietnam and India. Until about 1940, people of African descent constituted the majority of Mississippi’s population. By the late 20th century, however, they had become a minority (albeit a large one), owing primarily to a very high rate of out-migration. Nevertheless, in the early 21st century Mississippi had a greater percentage of African American residents than did any other state. The small Chinese population, concentrated mostly in the Delta, is descended from farm labourers brought there from California in the 1870s. The Chinese did not adjust well to the Mississippi plantation system, however, and most of them became small merchants. Many of the Southeast Asian immigrants of the late 20th century were attracted by the state’s coastal fishing industry. Much of the Native American population lives in the central section of the state.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, the state’s only federally recognized Native American group, has reservation lands in the vicinity of Jackson. Related Topics University of Southern Mississippi Various Protestant denominations dominate Mississippi’s religious life, most notably Baptists and United Methodists . The Roman Catholic population is concentrated in the urban centres and the southernmost areas, especially the coastal counties. The small Jewish community is almost entirely urban. Mississippi’s Buddhist and Muslim populations are tiny. Settlement patterns The landscape of Mississippi—one of forests, fields, towns, and growing cities—comprises a number of locally recognized cultural regions that generally correspond to the state’s geographic regions but follow a somewhat different terminology. Almost every Mississippian speaks colloquially of the Delta and the adjacent North Central Hills (or simply, the Hills), a highland region to the east; the Prairie (comprising the Central and Black prairies), or the Black Belt; North Mississippi and the Northeast; the Piney Woods, or South Mississippi; and the Coast, to refer to the entire coastal area. The state’s largest metropolitan areas are Jackson , Biloxi , Gulfport , and Pascagoula .

Geographers may speak of the Yazoo basin in the northwestern part of the state, but to the people of Mississippi it is the Delta , historically characterized by aristocratic plantation traditions and now a region of highly mechanized farming. Many Delta families originally came from the Hills to the east, which also is an agricultural zone. Adjacent to the Hills, but with more-productive lands, the Prairie region reflects some of the ways and style of both the Hills and the Delta. Northeast Mississippi developed as an area of small family farms and few plantations. What historians call the Piney Woods, covering most of the state south of Jackson, the people call South Mississippi. Though settled early, this region did not prosper until the great virgin pine forests were exploited—and heavily reduced—in the early 20th century. The area has continued to flourish, with most residents engaged in diverse agricultural activities, including forestry, cattle raising, and specialty farming, or in the rapidly expanding industrial and commercial sector. The Coast is atypical of the state as a whole. It is more Roman Catholic than upstate, and its blend of various European, Hispanic, and, more recently, Asian heritages makes it the most heterogeneous of Mississippi’s regions.

Many residents of the Coast were attracted not only by the area’s location and pleasant climate but also by its employment opportunities in various industries, gambling casinos, and resort hotels. Demographic trends Frequent movement by sharecroppers and tenant farmers from one farmstead to another was commonplace until the early 20th century. Around the 1920s the economic focus began to shift to the cities and towns, and, as it shifted, patterns of migration—and emigration—also changed; many Mississippians moved to less-rural regions in other states, and for a time emigration outweighed natural population growth. About three-fourths of the white emigrants moved to other Southern states, whereas the same proportion of African American emigrants left the South entirely. By the mid-20th century, however, the surge of emigration had subsided, and the population again had begun to increase. Growth continued throughout the subsequent decades; it was accompanied by a slow but steady loss of farm population, a decline of smaller towns, and a significant expansion of cities (settlements of more than 10,000 inhabitants).

Despite this rural-to-urban flow, there remained in the early 21st century no great extremes of population density within Mississippi. Economy Although there has been significant improvement in employment and compensation in Mississippi since the mid-20th century, growth at the regional and national levels has been proportionately greater; consequently, in the early 21st century the state remained disadvantaged economically, with a per capita gross product that was among the lowest in the country. Manufacturing and services —primarily government (federal, state, and local), retail and wholesale trade, real estate, and health and social services—are the largest sectors of the state’s economy. The services sector has expanded particularly rapidly since the late 20th century. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing Mississippi’s economy became less dependent on agriculture in the second half of the 20th century, and the number of farms and farm acreages declined significantly. By the early 21st century the sector represented only a tiny share of the state’s gross product and employed an even smaller segment of the population.

Cotton, once king of Mississippi’s agricultural sector, now shares its reign with livestock, catfish from aquaculture , poultry, and various crops such as soybeans and sweet potatoes. The great majority of the state’s farms focus on livestock and dairy products, and Mississippi has become a leading producer of broiler chickens. Cotton-picking machines in a field in Mississippi, U.S. Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce Workers harvesting catfish from a fish farm in Mississippi, U.S. Ken Hammond/USDA Lands in Mississippi that are unsuited to the cultivation of row crops are largely used for tree farms, orchards, or pastures. The state maintains an intensive reforestation program to replace the trees that are harvested each year as part of its forestry industry. Mississippi is one of the country’s top producers of lumber and wood-related products. Resources and power Petroleum and natural gas account for the great bulk (in volume and in value) of all minerals produced in Mississippi. Important nonmetallic minerals include sand and gravel, fuller’s earth, and other clays. Iron has been mined intermittently since the late 19th century. Aluminum ores are low in quality, and they have been little exploited.

Most of Mississippi’s electrical power comes from plants fired by coal and natural gas and to a somewhat lesser extent from a nuclear power station near Port Gibson . Hydroelectric power in smaller amounts is brought into Mississippi from Tennessee Valley Authority dams and through interconnections with power companies in other states. A few private companies, numerous rural cooperatives, and several municipal generating systems are in operation. Manufacturing In 1936 Mississippi adopted an industrial development program to “balance agriculture with industry,” and in 1965 the state’s industrial employment exceeded the number of agricultural workers for the first time. Manufacturing continued to expand until the end of the 20th century, when, following national trends, it began to decline. In the early 21st century, however, the sector remained an important contributor to the state’s gross product and a major source of employment. Mississippi’s principal manufactures include upholstered furniture, automotive parts, lumber and wood-related products (such as pulp and naval stores ), and processed foods (especially seafood from the coastal waters). Pascagoula is the site of a major shipbuilding company.

Services, labour, and taxation Mirroring the trend in many other states, the service sector in Mississippi has been on an upward swing since the late 20th century. A particularly notable development in the sector has been the expansion of casinos. In 1990 the Mississippi legislature legalized dockside casino gambling along the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River. Casinos have since opened at various locations along the coast and in Natchez, Vicksburg, and Tunica county, which is one of the largest gaming markets in the United States. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians also operates a casino on tribal lands near the town of Philadelphia . The government is a major employer in Mississippi. Among the most prominent of the federal institutions is the John C. Stennis Space Center, located on the southern coast between Gulfport and New Orleans. It is one of NASA’s primary testing facilities for rockets—including the U.S. space shuttles . Labour union membership in Mississippi is relatively small, although widely dispersed. Most large employers have a union membership. The state has a right-to-work law that prohibits compulsory union membership, however. Mississippi’s major sources of revenue are sales taxes, followed by personal and corporate income taxes, gasoline taxes, and gaming income.

Local governments derive their greatest income from property taxes. Considerable amounts of federal monies are provided through numerous federal and state agencies. Transportation Rail transportation, a large segment of which is entirely intrastate, has generally declined since the late 20th century. However, the state’s secondary highway system has improved significantly. The heaviest volume of traffic is along the Gulf Coast, where numerous north–south and east–west routes converge. Gulfport and Pascagoula can accommodate oceangoing ships, and low-draft oceangoing vessels can travel up the Mississippi River to Natchez , Vicksburg , and Greenville . Barge traffic moves on the Mississippi, Pearl , and Yazoo rivers. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway passes through the Mississippi Sound along the Gulf Coast. Mississippi has scores of public and private airports. Most large cities offer commercial service. There are international airports in the Jackson and Gulfport-Biloxi areas. Government and society Constitutional framework As delineated in the constitution of 1890, Mississippi’s government has executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

Most heads of executive departments are elected rather than appointed, and the executive branch includes the governor, the lieutenant governor, and several other officials, all of whom are elected to four-year terms. Executive officials may be reelected or reappointed to office. State Capitol, Jackson, Miss., U.S. Joel Brown/Shostal Associates Mississippi has a bicameral legislature, consisting of a 122-member House of Representatives and a 52-member Senate . The legislature meets in annual sessions. Representatives and senators are both elected to four-year terms. The municipal and justice courts are the lowest courts in the state’s judicial system. The municipal courts handle cases involving misdemeanour crimes, traffic tickets, and violations of city ordinances. Justice courts have original jurisdiction in certain cases where fines, sentences, and judgments do not exceed prescribed limits; they also deal with traffic violations that occur outside the municipalities. Some large counties maintain a county court. There are special courts to handle youth offenses and drug crimes. Chancery courts have jurisdiction over matters of equity , probate, juvenile delinquency (where county courts do not exist), divorce, and mental competence.

Circuit courts are the main trial courts for major suits, criminal cases, and appeals from justice and county courts. An intermediate court of appeals, which consists of 10 judges (two from each of the state’s five congressional districts) who are elected to eight-year terms, hears cases assigned to it by the state Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is the highest court of appeals; its nine justices are elected, from three judicial districts, for staggered terms of eight years. All lower court judges are elected to four-year terms. Each of Mississippi’s counties is governed by a five-member board of supervisors elected to a four-year term. Municipalities may be incorporated as villages, towns, or cities. Governments of these units are of the mayor-council type with aldermen, the commission type with several commissioners (including the mayor), or the city-manager type, in which the manager is appointed by the council. State and county officials are elected in a November general election. Party primaries are held in August. From the end of Reconstruction (1865–77) until the late 1940s, the Democratic Party was essentially the only party in Mississippi.

As in many states of the South , literacy tests, poll taxes , and other restrictive measures kept most black citizens from being able to participate in the electoral process. Disaffection among Mississippi’s white voters with the national Democratic Party over civil rights broke its domination in 1948, and thereafter, with few exceptions, advocates of states’ rights (the use of state power to oppose national legislation) or otherwise conservative Republican presidential candidates received the state’s electoral college votes. Increasing participation by black voters, made possible by the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act a year later, prompted a realignment of party politics in Mississippi. For a time, two Democratic parties existed—a predominantly black loyalist faction allied with the more liberal national party, and a conservative wing identified with the traditional white power structure. The two wings of the Democratic Party were unified in 1972, but most of the white conservative Democrats eventually switched to the Republican Party . In the 1980s a viable two-party system emerged in Mississippi, and in 1991 a Republican governor was elected in Mississippi for the first time since Reconstruction.

Since the late 20th century, African Americans have won election to an increasing number of local and state offices throughout the state. In national politics, Republicans have come to dominate elections, having won the state in all but one presidential election since 1972. Health and welfare Health, welfare, and other measurements of the quality of life in Mississippi necessarily must be considered in the perspective of the state’s long history of segregation and racial discrimination . The high infant mortality rate and welfare dependency are linked to a century of poverty, injustice, discrimination, and resistance to change that have impeded the development of the state’s natural and human resources. Almost all counties have some form of relief or welfare programs that involve federal funds. Welfare services include aid to the blind and disabled, the elderly , and dependent children. Health programs are administered by several state agencies, including the Board of Health, which dates from 1877. Historically, the state has been in the vanguard of public health services. The causes of pellagra (a nutritional disorder) were discovered in Mississippi in 1915. A model mosquito-control program eradicated yellow fever, and the state tuberculosis sanitarium became recognized nationally.

Education Mississippi’s primary and secondary public school system has typically ranked low by almost all measurable standards. Following years of turmoil brought on by the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling ( Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ) against racial segregation in public schools, the state committed itself to a dramatic improvement of its schools. The Education Reform Act of 1982, the reinstatement of compulsory attendance for children between ages 6 and 14, competency testing of high school students, the creation of an appointed state school board, and the establishment of an early childhood education program are measures that the state has taken to enhance the quality of education. The success of these measures since the late 20th century has been evident in the diminishing school dropout rate and the steady improvement in educational test scores. Mississippi also has a long history of pioneering work in the education of blind and deaf children; the Mississippi School for the Deaf, established by an act of legislature in 1854, continues to operate in Jackson . In contrast to its primary- and secondary-school record, Mississippi has a distinguished history of higher education.

Although it did not survive the American Civil War , Jefferson College (founded in 1802) was among the earliest public postsecondary institutions in the country. Elizabeth Female Academy (founded in 1818) is considered by some historians to be the first women’s college. In the late 19th century the Mississippi legislature allocated a portion of the state’s land-grant funds to Alcorn University, which had been established at Lorman in 1871, and renamed the institution Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College. Alcorn A&M, which is now Alcorn State University , was the first land-grant college in the United States for African American students, and it continues to be prominent among the country’s historically black universities (HBUs). Jackson State University (opened 1877) also is a long-standing, nationally recognized HBU and Mississippi’s premier urban institution. In 1884 Mississippi established the Industrial Institute and College at Columbus (now the Mississippi University for Women), the country’s first state-supported institution granting diplomas to women.

Other important universities include the University of Mississippi (founded in 1844; commonly called Ole Miss), located at Oxford ; Mississippi State University (opened in 1878), in Starkville ; and Mississippi Valley State University (opened in 1950), the state’s third HBU, in Itta Bena. Among the state’s major research institutions are the University of Southern Mississippi (founded in 1910), with its Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (founded in 1947), and the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (founded in 1972). The world’s first human heart and lung transplants were performed at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, a facility that is renowned for its innovative work in organ transplantation and hypertension research. In addition to major universities and research centres, Mississippi has dozens of community colleges, colleges for senior citizens, and smaller universities. Page 1 of 2 Mississippi River - Encyclopedia of Arkansas Home / Browse / Mississippi River Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the largest and most important river in North America.

This great river, often referred to as the “Mighty Mississippi,” originates as a small brook flowing out of Lake Itasca in Minnesota and, 2,340 miles later, empties into the Gulf of Mexico. It is truly one of the nation’s most important assets. Covering forty-one percent of the forty-eight contiguous United States, its watershed stretches across the heart of the nation. This vast river system, which includes several large tributaries, drains 1,260,000 square miles, making it the largest drainage basin in terms of area in North America and the third largest in the world. Significance to Arkansas The Mississippi River is a dominant physical feature of many states in the middle United States, including Arkansas. It flows along almost the entire eastern border of Arkansas. The river created what is often referred to as the “ Delta ” of eastern Arkansas, which is part of the nation’s largest alluvial plain. This vast and vital habitat supports a wide variety of flora, fauna, and aquatic species. The alluvial plain has remnant wetlands and several large oxbow lakes including Lake Chicot , Arkansas’s largest natural lake.

The river’s impact on human history is evidenced in historic river ports such as Osceola (Mississippi County) and Helena (Phillips County) . The Delta Cultural Center in Helena explores the Mississippi’s natural and historical legacies and its influence on regional culture, especially blues music. The alluvial plain in Arkansas has some of the richest and most productive agricultural land in the nation. Arkansas is the leading rice producer in the United States and ranks high in the production of cotton and soybeans. Eastern Arkansas is also part of the Mississippi Flyway and provides important waterfowl habitat for a large number of birds , including a wide variety of ducks. Stuttgart (Arkansas County) , for example, located near the confluence of the Arkansas, White , and Mississippi rivers, is known as the “Duck and Rice Capital of the World.” Physical Characteristics Of all the processes functioning to alter the surface of the earth, none is more important than the work of streams. This was the case with the Mississippi River Valley more than 8,000 years ago when glacial meltwater carved channels through the glacial debris. These channels served as the flow-path for the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

This large watershed has been divided into several smaller basins for convenience of study. The Upper Mississippi Basin, for example, extends from its point of origin at Lake Itasca to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at Cairo, Illinois. The Missouri River is the largest tributary in the upper basin and furnishes approximately fifteen percent of the total discharge and constitutes more than forty percent of the Mississippi system drainage area. The Lower Mississippi Valley extends from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at Cairo to the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico. The watersheds of the Arkansas, Red , and White rivers are among the most important tributaries of the lower basin. The Arkansas River , at 1,469 miles in length, is one of the most significant tributaries of the entire Mississippi River drainage network and is particularly important to Arkansas. This relatively large river flows east-southeast across the entire state. It enters Arkansas at Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and passes through Little Rock (Pulaski County) , Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) , and other cities before terminating at its confluence with the Mississippi River east of Dumas (Desha County) .

The lower Mississippi River meanders in great loops across a broad alluvial plain (also known as the Mississippi River Delta). It is a classic example of a stream in equilibrium, in which stream erosion and deposition have combined to produce a gradient that allows the stream to carry a sediment load that is in balance with the load that is delivered to the stream by its tributaries. As with all graded streams, the Mississippi River walks a fine line between temporarily picking up sediment load and then depositing it again. Natural levees, built up from sediment carried and deposited in times of flood, border the river for much of its length. Sediment has also been deposited on the riverbed. As a result, the surface of the river is above that of the surrounding plain in some places. The flow (discharge) of the river is usually greatest in the spring, when heavy rainfall and melting snow fill the watersheds of the tributaries, especially the Missouri and Ohio. This increase in flow frequently causes the river to overflow its banks and levees and inundate the adjacent floodplain. Arkansas has experienced numerous disastrous floods . One of the worst was the Flood of 1927 .

It covered much of the eastern third of the state, killed almost 100 people, and left thousands homeless. This disastrous flood prompted the construction of dams on the upper Mississippi and its tributaries to regulate flow. In addition, more than 1,600 miles of levees were built below Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to help contain the swollen river. Floodways were established to divert water at critical points, cutoffs were constructed to eliminate some of the more dangerous winding channels, and improvements were made to the main channel to increase the river’s flood-carrying capacity. Despite these efforts, the river continues to experience problems with flooding. Very serious floods occurred in 1973, during the summer of 1993, and as recently as the spring of 2008. It is important to note that flooding along a large river like the Mississippi cannot be eliminated. At best, one can limit its effects and try to protect the most valued land. Historical and Economic Significance Several Native American groups lived along the banks of the Mississippi River, including the Quapaw in what is now eastern Arkansas.

They exchanged goods, fished, farmed the fertile floodplains, and gave the river its name. The Ojibway Indians of northern Minnesota called it “Messipi” or “Big River,” and it was also known as the “mee-zee-see-bee” or “Father of Waters” in the Algonquian language. Some of the first Europeans to travel on the river were Spanish explorers such as Hernando de Soto in 1541, and French Jesuit missionaries and explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette in 1673. The French were the first Europeans to establish settlements in the valley. They founded New Orleans, Louisiana; St. Louis, Missouri; and several other sites in the early eighteenth century, including Arkansas Post . Navigation became a very important activity on the river during the early 1800s when steamboats were used to usher in the era of powered shipping. It soon became cheaper to ship cargo by river through New Orleans than to ship goods by land over the Appalachian Mountains.

The golden era of steamboats on the Mississippi continued until the 1870s, when railroads began to surpass the river as the major commercial transportation mode for the central United States. After an extended lull in the use of the river, barge traffic began to increase in the early twentieth century. Waterborne commerce on the Mississippi rose substantially with the shipment of such products as grains, coal and coke, petroleum products, sand and gravel, and more. Dredging and other channel improvements made the river navigable as far north as St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota. St. Paul became an important grain-shipping port. St. Louis, located at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, is known as the “Gateway to the West.” It grew as a port linking the Mississippi with the Great Plains. Along the lower reaches of the river, oceangoing vessel navigation is possible as far upstream as Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Consequently, New Orleans and Baton Rouge have become vital ports as well as major cities along the river. For additional information: Cech, Thomas V. Principles of Water Resources: History, Development, Management, and Policy. 2nd ed.

Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005. Corbet, John. Physical Geography Manual. 6th ed. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2006. Mississippi River and Tributaries Project. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (accessed May 10, 2013). Morris, Christopher. The Big Muddy:An Environmental History of the Mississippi and Its Peoples, from Hernando de Soto to Hurricane Katrina. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. “The Natural Environment: The Delta and Its Resources.” National Park Service. (accessed October 20, 2008). Schneider, Paul. Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History. New York: Henry Holt, 2013. mississippi Mississippi flows 3770 km from its source at Lake to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico ranks as the second longest river in the United States after the Missouri River , it carries a greater volume of water than any other American river. This map, illustrating the three major rivers of the central United States, shows that the Missouri converges with the Mississippi near St.

Louis, and the Ohio converges with the Mississippi in southern Illinois. The river is divided into the upper Mississippi, from its source south to the Ohio River , and the lower Mississippi, from the Ohio to its mouth near New Orleans, Louisiana. The Mississippi River runs through 10 states and was used to define portions of these states' borders. The middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was the line to define the borders between states. The river has since shifted, but the state borders of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi have not changed; they still follow the former bed of the Mississippi River as of their establishment. The name The Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico dead zone « World Ocean Review The Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico dead zone No other North American river has a drainage basin as large as that of the Mississippi. The amount of nutrients it discharges into the Gulf of Mexico is correspondingly large. Because freshwater from the river is lighter than the salty seawater, it settles as a distinct layer above the seawater. This phenomenon is called stratification. The freshwater layer acts like a blanket to prevent the exchange of gases, oxygen for example, between the seawater and the atmosphere.

This kind of stratification is also observed in other coastal areas, such as in the Baltic Sea between Denmark and Sweden, and in the Norwegian fjords. In the case of the Mississippi River, however, the situation is exacerbated by the especially high levels of nutrients it contains. The presence of the nutrients leads to profuse algal growth. When the algae die their remains sink into the lower water layer. There they are broken down by bacterial activity, a process that consumes oxygen. This causes the oxygen levels in the deep-lying saltwater layer to drop drastically. Free-swimming organisms flee the area due to the oxygen deficiency. Less mobile animals such as mussels die. For this reason, the low-oxygen areas off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas are called “dead zones“. In 2002 an oxygen-deprived area of more than 20,000 square kilometres was observed. This is equal to half the area of Germany. There is considerable evidence that the oxygen problem associated with stratification has only begun to occur more frequently since the middle of last century. The increase is probably due to the rising nutrient concentrations, especially nitrogen, which has trebled since the 1950s.

Stratification in the northern Gulf of Mexico is, in fact, a natural phenomenon that is especially pronounced during years with high rainfall. Storm events like hurricanes can cause effective mixing of the water, and even counteract the effects of stratification. But the nutrient transport of the Mississippi River is still too great. A management plan has now been adopted to attempt to reduce the nutrient input, with an aim of limiting the maximum area of the dead zone to around 5000 square kilometres. The measures being applied include improved wastewater treatment, optimized fertilization practices, and the creation of flood-plain areas along the rivers, which would absorb significant amounts of the nutrients. 4.5 > The Mississippi River carries vast amounts of sediments (yellow-brown) and nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico, which are then transported westward along the coast by the wind. The nutrients cause a strong growth of algae (green). Oxygen is consumed in the deep water as bacteria break down the algae. This results in a completely oxygen-depleted dead zone along a broad strip of the US coast. National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC School You Gotta Know These North American Rivers The Mississippi River is the second-longest in North America behind the Missouri.

Referred to by Abraham Lincoln as “the father of waters,” the Mississippi begins at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, and flows 2,340 miles to a vast delta on the Gulf of Mexico, forming portions of ten state borders and the world's third-largest drainage basin. The Mississippi picks up numerous major tributaries including the Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, and Red Rivers and flows past numerous major cities including Minneapolis, St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans. The Colorado River is the most significant river of the southwestern United States. Beginning in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, the Colorado River runs southwest for 1,450 miles to the Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico. The Colorado formed numerous canyons along much of its length, most notably the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The Colorado also has significant dams such as Hoover Dam near Las Vegas (forming Lake Mead) and Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona (forming Lake Powell). The Ohio River flows 981 miles through a significant industrial region of the central United States.

Historically seen as the border between the northern and southern United States, the Ohio is formed in downtown Pittsburgh by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, flowing past Wheeling, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Evansville, forming borders of five states before emptying into the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois. Other major tributaries of the Ohio include the Kanawha, Kentucky, Tennessee, Wabash, and Cumberland Rivers. The Columbia River is a vital waterway of the Pacific Northwest. Rising in the Rockies of British Columbia, the Columbia flows through Lake Revelstoke before entering Washington state. Grand Coulee Dam along the Columbia in Washington forms Lake Roosevelt. When it was completed in 1943, Grand Coulee was the largest hydroelectric plant in the world; it is still America's largest electric power plant. The Columbia receives the Yakima and Snake Rivers before forming much of the Washington-Oregon border, receiving the Willamette River in Portland before emptying into the Pacific where Lewis and Clark sighted the ocean. The St. Lawrence River drains the Great Lakes and serves as a major waterway of eastern Canada.

First explored and named by Jacques Cartier in the early 16th century, the St. Lawrence emerges from the northeastern corner of Lake Ontario in the Thousand Islands archipelago, forming the border between Ontario and New York. The St. Lawrence receives the Ottawa and Saguenay Rivers and flows through Montreal and Quebec City. At its mouth, the Gulf of St. Lawrence is one of the world's largest estuaries. The Hudson River has been a historically significant American river since the early 17th century. Named for English explorer Henry Hudson, it flows 315 miles through eastern New York state. After receiving the Mohawk River, the Hudson flows past New York's capital of Albany and West Point before forming the boundary between Manhattan and New Jersey. The Hudson is also culturally significant as an inspiration for Washington Irving and the Hudson River School of American landscape painters. The Missouri River is North America's longest, at 2,341 miles. The Missouri is formed in western Montana by the confluence of the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin Rivers. It flows past Bismarck, North Dakota and Kansas City before emptying into the Mississippi just north of St. Louis.

Lewis and Clark used the Missouri as a route for exploration of the Louisiana Purchase. The Missouri is regulated by a number of major dams, including Fort Peck in Montana and Oahe Dam in South Dakota. The Mackenzie River is the longest river of Canada. Flowing 1,080 miles out of the Great Slave Lake, the river flows past Fort Providence and Fort Simpson in Canada's Northwest Territories, emptying into a vast delta on the Beaufort Sea. The Mackenzie is the largest river flowing into the Arctic Ocean from North America. The river was named for Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie, who crossed Canada to the Pacific ten years before Lewis and Clark. The Potomac River is one of America's most historic waterways. Rising at Fairfax Stone in West Virginia, the Potomac runs 405 miles, forming the border between Virginia and Maryland. Washington, D.C. was sited on the Potomac at its confluence with the Anacostia River. George Washington's plantation Mount Vernon was on the Potomac, while Robert E. Lee's two invasions north of the Potomac were major events of the Civil War.

The Rio Grande has formed the border between Texas and four Mexican states since 1848. It flows south out of Colorado through New Mexico before reaching the international boundary near El Paso. Texas's Big Bend National Park is named for the sweeping curve the Rio Grande cuts through the Sierra Madre Oriental. After leaving the mountains, the river flows past Laredo and Brownsville before it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. This article was contributed by former NAQT writer Paul Nelson. Mississippi River Delta - National Wildlife Federation Mississippi River Delta Corporate Giving Mississippi River Delta About 40 percent of the coastal wetlands in the lower 48 states are found in the Mississippi River Delta in Louisiana. These millions of acres of wetlands were built over thousands of years by Mississippi River floodwaters that deposited huge amounts of sediment at the river's delta. Today, these wetlands range from interior forested wetlands to barrier islands on the Gulf of Mexico and a wide array of interconnected habitats, including freshwater, brackish and salt marshes that are home to millions of birds and other wildlife. People Depend on the Mississippi River Delta Almost half of the population of Louisiana lives near the coast, including in the city of New Orleans.

The coast's unique culture is made up of people whose way of life is tied to the bayous, including Acadians (Cajuns), American Indians and other peoples who have settled there from all over the world. Much of its Economy is Tied to its Coast and Wetlands: The coast has extremely productive commercial fisheries. The wetlands and wildlife draw birders, hunters, anglers, boaters and other outdoor enthusiasts. The navigable waterways, including the Mississippi River, support shipping and transit. The offshore oil fields and refineries provide numerous jobs. FEATURED VIDEO: VOICES FROM THE COAST The wetlands that make up most of the Mississippi River Delta are an extremely valuable resource that provides critical services to people, called ecosystem services . These include: Providing seafood and wildlife for us to enjoy Improving water quality by filtering out pollutants and absorbing excess nutrients Replenishing aquifers Helping to dissipate storm surges Wildlife in the Mississippi River Delta The delta has a diversity of habitats--from uplands to the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and everything in-between, including wet forests with cypress trees, freshwater marsh, brackish marsh salt marsh and sandy beaches. These habitats provide homes for an abundance of migratory and year-round wildlife.

Endangered species: The Mississippi River Delta has a number of federally endangered or threatened animals, such as the Louisiana black bear, piping plover and green sea turtle, that struggle to survive in the remaining coastal habitat. Plants: The Delta has many plants that live only in wetlands and that provide habitat for wetland wildlife. Some of these plants are cattails, swamp rose, spider lilies, and cypress trees. Fish and shellfish: Estuaries and wetlands are nurseries for young fish and shellfish. Migratory Birds: The Mississippi River Delta is where the Central and Mississippi flyways meet. It provides a place for Neotropical migratory songbirds to rest and feed before or after crossing the Gulf of Mexico, and it is a winter home to 70 percent of the waterfowl that migrate along these flyways, such as the gadwall, green-winged teal, northern shoveler, and snow goose. Reptiles: The American alligator is a well-known resident. Threats to the Delta Wetland Loss At one time there were extensive wetlands around New Orleans and other coastal communities that provided a natural resilience to storms.

In total, about fifty miles of marshland once protected New Orleans from the Gulf with trees and marsh grasses that blocked the winds and blunted storm surges. Today, Coastal Louisiana is losing 24 square miles of wetlands each year — roughly equivalent to a football field every 30 minutes. Louisiana has already lost an area of coastal land equal to the size of the state of Delaware! If this rate of wetland loss is not slowed, by the year 2040 the coastal shoreline will advance inland as much as 33 miles in some areas. Wetland loss occurs because of natural causes — subsidence and wave erosion — and human causes. How Do People Cause Wetland Loss? Construction of river levees, channels, canals and dams that regulate water flows or make it easier for ships to pass through an area. Draining wetlands for agriculture or urban development Human activities disrupt the natural balance of the wetlands in the Mississippi River Delta. Prior to human development, natural wetland loss was replenished by Mississippi River sediments and nutrients creating new wetlands. Human activities have the unfortunate side-effect of causing Mississippi River sediments to go straight down the river's channel and into the Gulf of Mexico.

Not only are we destroying wetlands, but we are disrupting the natural cycle that rebuilds them. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one of the lessons learned is that a healthy system of wetlands between New Orleans and the Gulf almost certainly would have slowed down the storm and dampened the storm surge. Without natural storm buffers, breaches in levees such as those after Hurricane Katrina could become an even bigger threat. Wetlands serve as nature's first line of defense--by absorbing much of damage caused by hurricanes. Global Warming

Question: In which American state does the Mississippi river enter the Gulf of Mexico?
Answer: Louisiana